Meituan invested in a humanoid robot and raised 700 million yuan in the angel round

One-year-old unicorn reserve

Recently, Beijing Galaxy General Robotics Co. , Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Galaxy General") announced that within one year of its establishment, it has completed an angel round of financing of RMB 700 million, setting a new record for financing in the domestic embodied intelligence track.

The lineup for this round of financing is also very luxurious, with all 18 shareholders having well-known names.

Well-known venture capital firms include IDG Capital, Source Code Capital, Guangyuan Capital, Matrix Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Yarui Capital, and Qiming Venture Partners. From the investment trends of these institutions, we can see that robots are their key focus area.

In the past three months alone, IDG invested in 3D digital company Xinlin 3D; Source Code Capital invested in Accelerated Evolution, another humanoid robot company, and previously participated in the 1 billion yuan financing of Yushu Technology; Yarui Capital also invested in Accelerated Evolution.

Galaxy General has also received the support of scientific research funds from China's top two universities. The Tsinghua-affiliated SEE Fund, the Peking University-affiliated Zhiyuan Research Institute and Yanyuan Venture Capital are also on the list of shareholders.

In addition, companies with state-owned backgrounds include China Merchants International Financial, Zhongguancun Science City, Shougang Fund, Beijing State-owned Assets Management and China Internet Investment.

Meituan Strategic Investment, iFlytek Venture Capital, and SenseTime Guoxiang Capital also participated in this round of financing. Among them, Hanhai Information, a subsidiary of Meituan, became the third largest shareholder with a shareholding ratio of 14.9758%. It can be seen that Meituan is fully betting on robots. Not only is it involved in "making humans", but it also vigorously supports start-ups and builds a "robot circle of friends".

Meituan founder Wang Xing has repeatedly stated that Meituan is a technology-driven company.

Public data shows that Meituan's R&D expenditure in 2022 increased by 24% year-on-year to 20.7 billion yuan. Its Robotics Research Institute was officially established in July 2022, and a robot subsidiary was established in 2023...

In addition to Galaxy General, Meituan also invested in another humanoid robot "hot chicken" Yushu Technology. According to Qichacha data, Meituan has become the second largest shareholder after Yushu founder and CEO Wang Xingxing, holding 8% of the shares.

Why are so many well-known investment institutions so optimistic about this startup company that has only been established for one year? The answer may be found in the core technology and products of Galaxy General.

Galaxy General's core competitiveness lies in its key technological breakthroughs in all aspects of embodied intelligence.

The company proposed a "three-level large model system", including hardware layer, skill layer and top-level large model. Through this innovative architecture, the robot's highly generalized capabilities were achieved.

In terms of hardware, Galaxy General's first product "Galbot" adopts a "double arms + single leg + wheeled chassis" structural design, which not only ensures the robot's flexible mobility, but also greatly expands its operating space.

Gabot is 1.73 meters tall and can not only squat to stably grab objects on the ground, but can even lie down with its entire body to have an "intimate contact" with the ground. At the same time, its lifting structure and seven-degree-of-freedom arm enable it to reach a height of 2.4 meters when standing up, making it one of the humanoid robots with the largest known working space in the world.

At the skill level, Galaxy General uses synthetic simulation data to drive embodied intelligence, allowing Gabot to master complex operation skills such as grabbing randomly placed transparent and high-gloss objects, opening cabinets, drawers, and hanging clothes. These skills are highly generalizable and can adapt to different environments and objects.

In terms of the top-level big model, Galaxy General separates the "big brain model" from the "big cerebellum model".

The "big brain model" is responsible for understanding human language instructions and making high-level decisions, while the "big cerebellum model" is responsible for translating decisions into precise action control.

Through these innovations, Galaxy General has achieved open semantic generalized grasping of robots across scenes, object materials, shapes, and object placements, with a success rate of up to 95%.

Behind these technological breakthroughs is Galaxy General's strong R&D capabilities.

The company's founder, Dr. Wang He, is a well-known scholar in the field of embodied intelligence. He holds a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University and a doctorate from Stanford University. He studied under American academician Leonidas J. Guibas.

In addition to Dr. Wang He, Galaxy General has also gathered a group of outstanding talents from top universities and well-known technology companies. At present, the company has more than 80 team members in algorithm, software, hardware research and development, and is still expanding rapidly.

Recently, Galaxy General has also established in-depth cooperation with Peking University and Zhiyuan Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and established a joint laboratory and research center respectively. This industry-university-research integration model also provides a continuous source of power for the company's technological innovation.

The battle for humanoid robots

In terms of the technical route of embodied intelligent robots , there are currently different options in the industry, and since there are no successful commercial cases, most people are in a state of "crossing the river by feeling the stones".

First of all, regarding the question of whether humanoid robots must be "human-shaped", the current group represented by companies such as Tesla and UBTECH tends to directly develop fully humanoid robots, pursuing appearance and movement capabilities that are exactly similar to humans.

Galaxy General takes a gradual approach, choosing to first improve the generalized operation capabilities of the robot's upper limbs, leaving the lower limbs to be solved in the future. Compared with the pursuit of a perfect humanoid, the company pays more attention to how to make the robot play a role in actual scenarios as soon as possible, which is why Galaxy General launched a testable product nearly a year after its establishment.

However, the fully humanoid robot route also has advantages.

The humanoid design is more in line with human’s intuitive cognition. In certain specific scenarios, such as when going up and down stairs, it may be more advantageous. In addition, humanoid robots are meant to replace some people’s work. Only by achieving “humanoid” can they perfectly adapt to the production and living environment created for humans.

However, full humanoid robots are still facing many challenges in terms of stability, energy consumption and cost. In the future, these two technical routes are likely to gradually merge. With the advancement of technology, wheeled humanoid robots may gradually increase leg functions, while full humanoid robots will continue to improve in terms of stability and energy consumption.

However, which route will ultimately prevail will be decided by the market.

Although Galaxy General is still in the technology research and development stage, the company has already begun to prepare for future commercialization. The company adopts a dual-wheel drive strategy of "technology-driven + scenario implementation". On the one hand, it continues to improve the general generalization ability of the embodied large model, and on the other hand, it actively explores the application of robots in actual scenarios.

In terms of scenario layout, Galaxy General focuses on retail, industry, logistics, education and other fields, and has reached strategic cooperation with many enterprises and institutions. The company also plans to further explore application scenarios such as community elderly care and family services, and strive to make robots truly help humans in multiple basic but complicated tasks, and become a new driving force for corporate development.

It is worth noting that Galaxy General is not in a rush to launch consumer products, but has adopted a prudent commercialization strategy. The company plans to gradually introduce its self-developed universal embodied intelligent robots into real business scenarios within this year, which will not only verify the feasibility of the technology, but also accumulate experience for future large-scale commercialization.

Towards the future stars

Behind Galaxy General’s 700 million yuan in financing is a new emerging industry.

Embodied intelligence is not just a technological innovation, but also represents a fundamental change in the way humans interact with machines. It will open up a whole new world for us, a world where human intelligence and machine capabilities are deeply integrated.

In this new world, machines are no longer just cold tools, but intelligent partners that can understand, learn, and adapt. They will help us break through the limitations of our bodies, extend the boundaries of perception, and expand the territory of cognition. Humans and robots have never been "replacements" but "coexistences."

The story of Galaxy General is a microcosm of this transformation. It demonstrates the innovative vitality of Chinese enterprises in this field, reflects the eager expectations of the global capital market for this field, and paints an exciting picture of the future for us.

As witnesses and participants of this transformation, we are full of expectations and have great responsibilities. The story of humanoid robots has only just begun, and it is waiting for more people to write about it...